Having watched High Fidelity millionth time the other night, and because it's rather boring today in the shop I work in I thought I'd do a couple of my top fives, this will be semi-regular feature starting with...
- Lost In Translation
- Almost Famous
- Requiem For A Dream
- Jackie Brown
- Romeo + Juliet
I guess they're all fairly obvious but all are oustanding examples of making music fit with moving images to tell stories for which the original songs were not meant, apart from Requiem For A Dream which is an original score.
It's a pretty interesting concept actually, I mean, I'm sure its hard work but when it works perfectly it can be fantastical, emotional and conceptual all at the same time. I'll never forget the first time I saw Platoon, with 'that bit with Adagio For Strings playing in the background'. Likewise I'll never forget the opening sequence of Reservoir Dogs...
And now you're wondering why neither of those films are in my top five? Well, those scenes mentioned are great but I just don't think the rest of their respective soundtrack's live up to the standards set in those scene's; the exception to this is the ear cutting scene in Reservoir Dogs with Stealers Wheel's classic track Stuck In The Middle With You playing throughout. What a great visual motif that is.
The soundtrack for Lost In Translation was compiled, and in parts written by Kevin Shields, of My Bloody Valentine fame. The highlisht for me is Air's masterwork of minimal electronic pop 'Alone in Kyoto'. This complilation seems to have been brought together with such delicacy and love for music. Other Highlights include; The Jesus and Mary Chain, Death In Vegas and Squarepusher.
The Soundtrack for Almost Famous includes Elton John's Tiny Dancer, End of Story! Well, almost; this collection of 60's and 70's rock is pretty hard to fault. Lynyrd Skynyrd's Simple Man plays perfectly against David Bowie's I'm Waiting For The Man. When the soundtrack closes with Thunderclap Newman "Something in the Air" I'm usually found frantically trying to hit the repeat all on the CD player.
The Requiem For A Dream is the only soundtrack on here made of completely original music. The soundtrack was composed by Clint Mansell and performed by the Kronos Quartet. While haunting to listen to on its own, it fits the feeling of desperation from the film perfectly. The mesure of its success can been seen in the way it has been used for various other films and even computer games. Most notably a revamped version was used on the trailers for The Lord Of The Rings films.
Opening with Bobby Womack's 'Across 110th Street' you just know that the Jackie Brown soundtrack is going to kick some serious arse. Its sexy, slick and for me it was a learning experience. Tarantino pulling together some of his favourite records, which I'd never even heard of before was great. I look at this soundtrack on two levels - a soundtrack to a film (duh!) but more importantly it plays like a well crafted mixtape with a start, middle and an end. Also there's a bit of a personal link to this soundtrack for me. I remember raiding my Dad's 7's and coming across The Delfonics 'Didn't I blow Your Mind This Time' when I was about 6 or 7 years old and playing it to death before forgetting about it and listening to Micheal Jackson's 'Bad' on tape repeatedly. Hearing it again on this soundtrack brought back so many memories of my childhood.
Last but not least is the Romeo + Juliet soundtrack. Released 10 years ago (I swear it doesn't seem that long ago!) in 1997 this still sounds fresh and great to the ear. It plays like a 2many DJs mish-mash of styles, much like the Baz Luhrmann's film. From Des'ree Ballads to the uber pop of The Cardigans and Indie-cool sounds from Garbage, Radiohead and Everclear this is faultless and has something for everyone.
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